1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope, a guide unit, a guide wire, a medical-device guiding system, and a medical-device guiding method.
2. Description of Related Art
An endoscope in which an observation window and an opening of a channel can be made to face each other is known (for example, see the Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3432893). With such an endoscope, an image of a surgical instrument taken in and out of the channel is acquired from the front. That is, an operative site can be treated easily and accurately with the surgical instrument without the operative site and the distal end of the surgical instrument being hidden behind the shadow of the mantle of the surgical instrument and being lost to sight in an endoscopic image.
The interior of the pericardial cavity between the heart and the pericardium that surrounds the heart requires complicated manipulation of the endoscope as compared with the case of the interior of a lumen, for which manipulation in the front-to-back direction is sufficient.